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Jargon buster

Firing line: Competitors position themselves here to shoot their targets.

Clay shooting: Clay thrown into the air by a trap machine are the targets.

String: A series of shots – usually five or ten.

Lost: A missed shotgun target.

Three positions: Rifle events that require competitors to shoot in the prone, standing and kneeling positions at a distance of 50m.

Basic rules

The events in shooting are all competed individually and are separated into three disciplines; rifle, pistol and shotgun.

In each of these disciplines there are five events (two for women and three for men) and they require the shooters to adopt different positions when performing; standing, kneeling or prone – where they lie on their fronts.

The rules vary according to the discipline, with distance, types of target, arm, firing position, number of shots and the time within which the shots have to be fired, all being factors.

In order to score points in the shotgun discipline the shooters have to hit a moving target called a ‘clay’, which is made of pitch and chalk.

A hit is officially recognized by the referee when the target is shot and at least one visible piece is seen to fall from it. The winner of this discipline is the athlete who hits the most targets.

In the rifle and pistol events the target that needs to be hit is a stationary ten ring target from a set distance of either 10m, 25m or 50m. The ring is divided into various areas that give a different amount of points.

The game begins in a qualification round where the best eight shooters qualify as a result of them being the highest scoring, and move to the final round where the ten rings of the target are subdivided into ten different “decimal” score zones.

The athletes final score of this round is then added to their qualification score to make up the total score and final ranking.

The winner of the rifle and pistol events is the shooter with the overall highest score.